Parliamentary elections in Lesotho on Saturday look set to consolidate stability in the tiny mountain kingdom after a contested vote in 1998 which was followed by rioting and foreign military intervention, election officials say.
”The campaigning has been peaceful and fun, like Christmas. We are on track, we are ready,” said Rethabile Pholo, representative for the Lesotho Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) told AFP.
Nineteen political parties are competing for votes in the mountainous southern African kingdom, landlocked within South Africa, in a German-style mixed proportional and constituency system being used for the first time in Africa.
Lesotho will be under scrutiny during the election following its turbulent past and problems with recent elections in Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Zambia.
After independence from Britain in 1966, Lesotho had four years of democracy followed by 23 years of military rule.
It returned to a constitutional monarchy in 1993, but five years later when the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) won a landslide victory on May 23, 1998 the results were violently contested.
Rioting and a mutiny by soldiers sympathetic to the opposition four months later triggered military intervention by 3 500 troops from South Africa and Botswana.
The 14-nation Southern African Development Community approved the intervention to restore calm, but the troops met with resistance and clashes that left 75 people dead and widespread destruction.
This time round no violence is expected, Alwyn Viljoen of the IEC told AFP.
”It looks like it will be peaceful. Almost 50% of people polled recently showed they understood the process,” Viljoen said, adding international observers were already in Lesotho.
The majority of the 210 observers in Lesotho are from the region, with observers from Britain, France, Germany and Ireland among the European Union countries represented.
Three major political parties — the ruling LCD led by Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili, the Basotho National Party (BNP) led by Justin Metsing Lekhanya and Kelebone Maope’s Lesotho People’s Congress (LCP) — had their final ”show of strength” rallies in Maseru on Sunday attended by tens of thousands of voters.
”There was a very good turnout. But if you had a notion you could pick which one would win from that, there would be a problem pinpointing which party to choose. They are running neck-to-neck,” Pholo observed.
The BNP rally, however, attracted a bigger than the ruling LCD, while the LPC also had an impressive turnout.
Maope established the LPC at the end of 2001 as a breakaway from the ruling party, taking 26 other LCD parliamentarians with him.
The BNP has a long track record, having ruled Lesotho as a one-party state for from 1970 to 1986, but in 1998 it had a huge turnout at rallies but failed to convert this into votes.
In that election, run on a first-past-the-post system, the LCD won with 60% of the votes, gaining 79 of the 80 available seats, while the BNP’s 25% poll won it one seat.
The political parties have since agreed to change the electoral model to a more representative one — a ”mixed-member proportional system” which allows voters to cast both a first-past-the-post constituency vote (80 seats) and a party vote (40 seats).
In February, King Letsie III proclaimed the elections would be held on May 25.
Of the 2,2-million population, some 830 000 voters have registered, Pholo said.
Unemployment, at about 45%, crime, corruption and famine appear to be high on the list of voters’ concerns, of whom an estimated 24% are infected by HIV/AIDS.
Canvassing, mostly through party vans fitted with loud-hailers, comes to an end on Wednesday night.
Prime Minister Pakalita Mosisili (57) is the leader of the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), which came to power in a landslide victory in 1998. That result was rejected by the opposition and led to rioting and an army mutiny put down by 3 500 troops from South Africa and Botswana at the cost of at least 75 lives and widespread destruction.
In May 1998 Mosisili, then deputy prime minister and minister of home affairs and local government, was sworn in as the prime minister. In the 1993 elections Mosisili beat his opponent for a constituency seat by only one vote. The prime minister established his political credentials back in 1970 when, as a youth leader of the Basutoland Congress Party, he was detained under emergency regulations for 16 months.
Mosisili was an academic and school teacher before entering parliament, having studied in southern Africa and the United States. His hopes for this election are pinned on the LCD’s position as the ruling party and its promise to promote stability through its current policies.
Kelebone Albert Maope (57) is leader of the opposition Lesotho People’s Congress (LPC). The LPC was established as a breakaway party from the ruling party last October, with Maope, then LCD deputy leader and deputy prime minister, leading the defection of 26 parliamentarians.
Maope is a lawyer, with post-graduate qualifications from Britain. He worked as a public prosecutor before setting up a private practice. He left his practice in 1986 to join the civil service as attorney general. In 1998 he was elected to parliament.
Major-General Justin Metsing Lekhanya (64) a former military ruler, is the leader of the Basotho National Party (BNP). In 1986 he toppled the BNP government, charging it with corruption, and became chairman of a military council which ruled Lesotho until the return of democracy in 1993. Lekhanya, however, was ousted as chairman in 1990 after he wanted to charge members of the rank and file with criminal offences. He had recently been cleared of a murder charge.
He built his career in the armed forces after joining the police force in 1960. Lekhanya, famous for his boxing and soccer prowess, rose within the ranks to become head of the army that toppled the BNP in 1986. His education stopped at secondary school, although he attended military courses in the United States and Britain.
Building on his tough reputation, the general promises to uproot growing lawlessness in Lesotho that has seen stock theft, robbery and rape soar.
Molapo Qhobela (69) a veteran politician, is at the helm of the Basutoland African Congress (BAC), a breakaway wing of the Basotho Congress Party (BCP). He split from the BCP at the beginning of the year to form his own party. The BAC leader is a law graduate who studied abroad. He represented the BCP for 20 years in exile in London and Accra.
In 1991 Qhobela became the BCP’s deputy leader and was elected to parliament in 1993. He was minister of foreign affairs for the next four years. He became leader of the BCP in 1997. – AFP
